I chose this job to work every day in a different sector,
Now every sector needs a portfolio, otherwise they won't let you in.
And then there are the vertical agencies, clear, clean and shiny, that are tempting.
But did the portfolio come first or be vertical?

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Welcome back Among the Notes, the safe space where people talk and tell each other, what it means on a personal level, to create a company at 30 years old, in my case Open.

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It's raining, no longer on the forehead, and autumn comes and marketing departments re-emerge from summer hibernation looking for agencies with which to spend an hour on call so as not to think about the excel tables to do by 17:00.

Ready, start away.

Down the lead qualification tunnel.

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1. The mythological creature called Brief:

'we have to redo the site'

“we need a refresh of our corporate image”

“We are entering a new business phase and a new payoff is needed.”

Good. Thank you.

But to work you need something else.

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And then you interview them, you create your own method for doing it, and reconstructing not the reason for the call, but the reason it occurred to them to call you. You do it carefully, ask how they want to be perceived, how they want to work, and write them the brief and send it to them.

Does anyone read it?

It depends.

But you sent it to yourself, and you feel justified in working on the project proposal.

Even if you feel it.

It's about to arrive.

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2. The perfect timing of the question:

He comes to the end of the proposal, after having explained activities, methodology and timing.

After the economic proposal, there is always a break.

“Do you have to share a portfolio (usually sent at least a week in advance) with similar examples, from our sector I mean”

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If anyone remembers Lie to Me, Cal Lightman, they could read my expression in a nano-second.

You called me, I assume you saw my site.

I sent you the portfolio, I assume you've read it.

Listening to you is work, listening to me is yours.

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3. Verticality is good, but for everyone?

It has always teased me too, to create a vertical project parallel to Open, true love has never blossomed yet (aerospace sooner or later I arrive). Meanwhile, in recent months, knowing vertical realities, we have understood that:

• Often the founders have been so good that they were able to combine two passions and transform them into work
• In other cases, they have been so awake as to read the market and rightly jump into a vertical position.

Without a doubt, a difficult balance, an equally important ability to read the market, which I still need to understand and study thoroughly. In the meantime, good to you.

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But lately a doubt has arisen to me: is it good for me?

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I tell the rest of us, that more than in the sector, we have specialized in specific services, today without portfolios, few let you in.

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And back to the customer side: but no one ever asks, how can I make a portfolio if someone doesn't let me in first? That is the dilemma.

How would planes fly if pilots couldn't get on planes without having flown before? This is a paradox.

Perhaps I read the latter on a magnet in my Mother's fridge.

I beg your forgiveness, it's late in the evening.

Last paragraph and I'm sleeping come on.

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4. Meanwhile, in large companies:

“We want a fresh look.”

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Often this preamble, once pronounced, magically turns into a “you must be cheap”, and of course these notes tend to simplify a bit, in favor of narration, but I must add a noteworthy trend in this regard.

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It has often happened to us that this phrase, combined with the size of the lead, just as a company, and if based abroad even more so, is real:

There is a latent desire, which is sometimes expressed, to seek fresh and virgin glances from the logic of specialized agencies or large advertising groups.

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And this makes me very happy, because structurally it is normal for the references and mentality of someone who meets your sector for the first time to be innovative and can bring progress. When it happens, I assure you, I smile.

It happens to me too.

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Let's say hello, thanks again today for going down with me through the notes, who knows that one day we will not open our vertical, for the moment we will continue to earn the trust of our customers, one portfolio at a time.

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See you soon,

Marco

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